Purple Portugal

 

My mother comes into the kitchen and tells me that my great-grandmother died last night. 

Avó as I used to call her.

I lean over the side of the sink to breathe and all I can see is a lost porcelain charm.

A little Virgin Mary at the bottom of a teacup full of tepid and radiant camomile tea.

Mary’s face is blank, no eyes painted.

Avó’s apartment was full of idols, decorating countertops and fireplaces like icing on a cake. The gaudy cakes in Portuguese bakeries were mounted like chapels of sugar. 

We sit down and eat chorizo and pound law; mother went to the deli to mourn today.

I stuff my face, and I don’t taste anything, I don’t want to, because maybe if I fill myself up enough, I’ll be closer to her. Closer to hearing her say “mange, mange”. 

I see her cutting a slice of cheese in between her breasts beside me. 

 

I lay in my bed that night and close my eyes. It’s as if I’m five again in Jonathan’s room. 

Above my head is a poster of Bob Marly. I didn’t recognize the face then, but I do now. 

Like lost documentary footage inside of me I can only now understand. 

I sneak into Avó's bed and snuggle in between her and my grandma. They’re telling stories, switching between Portuguese and French. 

Like a dead language inside of me I could only understand then. We laugh and laugh, my little body giggling in between their bodies. Avó’s lace curtains billowed in pink. 

 

Pink turned into purple. That’s the palette I paint the sky the last time I saw Avó. She made rabbit Ragu. 

I look down at the neighbour's abandoned pool downstairs. The early September wind had carried the leaves into their courtyard and their dog whimpered alone.  She insists that I eat, and she watches me because she knew. I remember her shadow waving at me from the balcony. But I don’t remember her last kiss on my cheek because I didn’t know. It must have been wet with tears

 

I wake up and mother tells me they’re going to bury her in Nazareth. Legend says it’s where the templars buried the holy grail. Portugal, “port du gral”, to carry the grail.

 

I see her at Jonathan’s wedding holding up a trembling cup above her head, and her sweet and painful smile. I taste the sweet Porto from that night, swirling around my mouth. I think about all the blood that has been poured out of her, blood that runs through me, a sweet and painful blood.

 

Avó, did you ever think of your great-grandmother that abandoned her daughter in front of the chapel? And your mother who died giving birth to you? And your daughters who suffered too? Of my grandma who claims my grandfather barely touched her despite falling pregnant at 16? Of my mother who fell in love on the other side of the Atlantic and cried in an elevator when an old man said “go and have children”? Did you think of me and Paloma? Did you ever think of Mary? Did you see our faces in the idols that kept you company like dolls do for little girls? 

 

 

Avó, I see your little body thinking, draped in purple crochet, sitting on your couch. The TV is on as always, with voices to keep you company, like the lost voices inside of you. There’s a tepid radiant light seeping through the cheesecloth drapes. The sweet and painful air of Portugal guides its movement and collects the tile’s dust. Avó, I see your eyes and they collect everything. 

 

Funny how Avó, which means grandmother, sounds like evo, which means eternity.

Dab my brush into the cool blue

Infuse a hot and burning hue

Dive from Europe’s edge into you

I see it rise, this purple cloud of mine

Use its pigments to forge figments

Of this picture I held

Inside my mind

 

In the dark, watch her shadow hover over me

She’s a lone raging gondolier

Gone to sail her boat to sea

Fail to see what this could all possibly mean

 

At the cusp of her parting

Cover her in purple

In the colour of Portugal

 

Before she left town for a man

With the shiniest shades

She’d spent her childhood

Cutting cabbages to shreds

Tears running down her blade

She’d wonder about her mother

Way up high, and let out a sigh

For her father

Somewhere above the waves in Argentina

The weird witch locked her out at night

The wolf’s cry was her lullaby

As she dreamt of the day she’d say

Goodbye

 

At the cusp of her parting

Cover her in purple

In the colour of Portugal

 

 

When I cross the boarder

Old boulders stand besides new billboards signs

It’s so old and old and new and old

Where are you? In these gentrified sailor homes, in these louder roads

When I cross the border

I hear it from afar

From the hum of the car

Rolling and rolling

Concrete unravelling

Towards the coast

When I cross the border

I float in the tears of those

Who have traced their pain in the sand

Knowing the waves will sanctify them

Oh, but I belong to the living

Repeat after me

Saudade  Saudade Saudade

When I cross the border

I go back to you